City school board looks at school safety

March 14, 2006 at 2:48 AM CST - Updated July 10 at 9:53 PM

Memphis School board members say they're continually told city schools aren't safe and point toward several incidents this school year alone. For that reason, the school board is considering spending more than a million dollars to increase security in schools.

At a meeting Monday night, board members were told there are forty four Memphis Police officers on school property and 17 Memphis City Schools security officers.

Fearing that's not enough to protect students, the district is talking about spending more than a million dollars.

That would buy thirty more school district officers.

It would also pay for extra training and equipment.

The price tag?

One million 370 thousand dollars.

Superintendent Carol Johnson said that may be money well spent, "It is an expensive price tag but I think that unless we resolve some of the issues regarding security in some of our schools we won't be able to address the academic achievement issues as well as we can."

Not everyone is convinced extra policing is the answer.

Board President Sara Lewis and others say we need to find out WHY these students are acting out.

This is just a proposal now and has to go through the budget process.

Part of this plan would put extra security in so called troubled schools such as Trezevant, Craigmont, Kingsbury and Hamilton High Schools.